The Kitten and the Ringworm

I think most people, including me, have heard of ringworm, but most probably don’t really understand what it is. I certainly didn’t, and I have a degree in biology. I guess because I never had it, I didn’t think much about it.

The name indicates that it’s a worm, but it really isn’t. It is a fungus.

And it can be transmitted to humans from their pets. Ew. You may be asking how I came to know this salient little fact. Well, I recently acquired a darling little kitten. A purebred, hairless Sphynx I named Sophia. You can probably guess where this is going.

The Discovery

Yes, apparently my little Sophia was infected with ringworm, or tinea as it’s also known. Had I been aware beforehand, I would have taken the necessary precautions, such as washing my hands and keeping direct contact to a minimum until the infection was cleared up on the kitten, but, as I didn’t know, I was oblivious. The kitten didn’t show any obvious signs, but once one of my daughters broke out on her arm with a little circular rash, I got suspicious that there might be something wrong with the kitten. Then, a day later, I got two of the rashes, one near my shoulder and one on my stomach of all places. I still can’t figure out how I ever had direct contact with the kitten on my stomach, but maybe I’d touched or scratched my stomach. Who knows.

Anyway, at first, we didn’t know what the rashes were. We’d never had them before and then a few days after getting Sophia, we both had the rash. Hmm, doesn’t take a genius to see the correlation there. For some reason my other two daughters didn’t get anything wrong with them at all. It could be because I have a weakened system due to psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis and my daughter has a lot of allergies. The other two are quite healthy and probably have an excellent immune system. Lucky them.

So, I started a little investigation via the Internet. Thank goodness for the Internet because that’s where I find out a tremendous amount of information. I searched under skin rashes and soon found the exact thing we had. The rash is distinctive.

It’s round with raised edges and a more or less clear center, which makes it look like a ring, thus the name.

I think it looks almost like a bullseye. My research did indeed point to the transmission of this icky fungus from pets to their owners. This not only solve the mystery, but let me know that in addition to treating my daughter and myself, we also needed to treat my kitten or we’d just keep getting reinfected.

The Treatment

Unfortunately, ringworm is tricky because it can be passed not on by living things like pets or people, but by the fungi getting on bedding, brushes or even toilet seats. Gross, no? This meant that anything that could be have been contaminated by Sophia, and us, needed to be disinfected. For the rash, an antifungal cream like Lotrimin or Lamisil are very effective, but take some time. I bought Lamisil and applied it to our rashes twice a day. It took almost four weeks for my daughter’s rash to fade away, but only took about three for me. The rash still wasn’t gone, but was getting better, which meant we still had to apply the cream. It actually took about two months before all signs of the rash were completely gone.

For Sophia, I decided to do a little at-home treatment since I found a small lesion that could have been a rash, or maybe just a little bump, but I took no chances. Luckily the bump/rash was on the inside of her ear, so she wouldn’t be able to ingest the Lamisil. I applied a dab every day and unlike us, it seemed to vanish within days. Whether or not it was the actual rash, I’ll never know. If you take your pet to the vet, they will use a Wood’s lamp to look for lesions or can even examine individual hairs for signs of infection. I thought I’d try treating it myself to save money. There are also other treatments available.

Freedom

Either I got lucky or the infection wasn’t very bad (or possibly wasn’t from the kitten at all), because none of us got another infection of the ringworm again. The kitten was fine, my daughter was fine and I was fine. Ringworm, as I found out, will usually resolve itself after some time without doing any real damage to the host, so maybe that’s what happened. Either way, whether we managed to cure it or it just resolved on its own, we were freed from the insidious fungus. And it felt good. I don’t think anyone wants to think they have a fungus on their body. At least I don’t.

I suppose in hindsight, I should have taken the kitten to the vet, just to make sure that she didn’t have an infection of tinea, but as I didn’t see any bald patches or lesions anywhere, I decided to try a conservative treatment first. I read on the Internet that some vets recommend shaving long haired cats and bathing them in dips to eliminate the fungus. Since Sophia has no real hair, just very fine peach fuzz, this would have definitely been extreme in this case, but I’m sure in some cases it’s necessary if the animal has a severe infection as the lesions can cause hair loss in patches and might also itch. Nobody wants their pet to suffer needlessly.

I guess from this I learned exactly what ringworm is and how to get rid of it, and that it’s really not that bad. It’s awful to have just from the standpoint of having a fungus infection, but it’s not even as bad as athlete’s foot. In fact, athlete’s foot is a type of tinea, but far more itchy and annoying. Both are treated the same, with an antifungal cream like Lamisil or Lotrimin. It might take a bit of time and effort, but with a little care, the infection can be cleared up, leaving no permanent scars or damage. And best of all, my kitten is healthy and has never shown any other signs of ringworm.

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